Rah Rah for KKG! I'm so excited for you!

Welcome, Sister! Congrats to another KKG! Woo hoo!!! Will you pm me and tell me where you are?

Congratulations to you and Kappa Kappa Gamma! How wonderful for you to have Kappa to share with your mother!

I'm curious though, as it is kind of rare for a rerusher to have better results the second time at any school, what do you think you did better this time? I know you mentioned your conversational skills improved (very important) and you had friends in some chapters this time around. Did your grades go up? Were you involved on campus last year? Your insight would be helpful to the dozens of rerushers that come on GC looking for advice. It was quite a dramatic change, from having only one chapter, to largely being in the driver's seat chosing from a few chapters that you really liked!

It was such a dramatic change! Last year I was envious of girls with full schedules, with chapters they loved, and now I was being envied!

I worked on:
Conversation:
-I practiced on EVERYONE (people at Starbucks, new people I meet etc.) on good rush conversations.
-I made a list of good conversation topics. Things that I like and my accomplishments that could easily flow off of the introductory "where do you live?" "what is your major" topics. For example: "where do you live?" I said in an apartment with three roommates whom I LOVE. We cook together and have movie nights together. This gave the rusher many topics to go off of.
-I always had positive subjects. If the rusher said something negative, I would turn it into a positive subject.
-I also made sure to know the rushers name and said it often. Subconsciously people like this
-I was very engaged in the conversation. Leaning towards my rusher, using my hands etc.
-I said how much I like ____ part of the house. For example: "I like how I feel very much at home here"
-If I was double rushed, I tried to not "compete" with the other girl. I tried to share the conversation with the other girl. If she was shy I would say something and pass it off to the other girl where she could respond. (For questions like where are you from and such)

Knowing people in the house
-There were a few people in my dorm in sororities, so I would keep in contact with them throughout the year
-During the winter/spring I sent out a facebook message to girls in sororities that I had loved and told them that I really liked their sorority and asked if they were doing informal (during spring, chapters don't announce it). So they knew I was interested.

Grades/Involved on Campus
-My GPA in high school was pretty good (a 3.7 on a 4.0 scale), and in college it stayed that way (a 3.7 on a 4.0 scale). It showed that I could handle the college workload.
-I was very involved in two activities. RHA--I was my dorm's president and Relay for Life where I led a team. I tried to make these come up in conversation

Dress
What I wore was very important to me and I felt like that was what got me behind the girls last year (though probably not true--I wasn't a good conversationalist and I had zero confidence)
-I knew what the girls wore last year (trendy top, premium jeans, flats) and was able to take that into my own style.
-I also knew to dress a little bit fancier than the guide they gave. I even heard girls say how they would rather be underdressed than overdressed!--They didn't do very well!
-I searched FOREVER for my pref dress. I thankfully knew the guidelines (how fancy and not to wear black or white) and a GC'er on here helped so much!


I was also CONFIDENT in myself

this should really be stickied

Great tips, Strawberrygloss!

Why on earth would someone rather be underdressed than overdressed? Ahhh! So backwards forever!!

Thanks everyone! Someone suggesting stickying that is one of the greatest compliments ever!

I just went around GC, through the stickies and searched for good conversational skills, going through recruitment again and such topics for about 9 months. I had this big long Word document with links to different GC topics with advice, links to good examples of outfits and what I wanted to buy. I also planned my outfit (down to each piece of jewelry) on it too.

On the way to my cabin, my mom and I would have practice rush conversations--and oh my that would get annoying after a while. However, it obviously worked!

APhiAnna had a thread about conversation that was very helpful. ETA: Found it!

Sidenote: Was this your mom's chapter or did she go to school somewhere else? Just curious, and you don't have to answer.

Yes! That is one of the great threads I constantly went through.

My mom went to school somewhere else.

Wrong thread.

Not sure why this was inadvertently bumped, but I love this story... strawberrygloss, I hope you are still loving Kappa and enjoying that bond with your mom. You are on my short list of people I may be able to meet IRL someday :)

I love this story - and not just because you ended up a KAPPA! :) I love that you really made some positive changes before going through recruitment again.

If you're re-rushing, this thread is great--

This deserves a bump. Amazing advice here.